Shortlived Boxster engines survey

[arthrodriver]

Earlier in this thread a gentleman spoke about familiarity with the ball bearing causing the IMS problem. I was poking around and found a reliability site on ball bearing failures. Yikes. At the component level there are multiple sources of problems: Inadequate shaft surface finish, defective race grinding, ball separation defective, bad seals,on and on. These things seem fragile. Then there's installation...

The electric motor usage is the main source of these studies with 3 axis accelerometers providing vibration wave forms which are compared against expected results. In that industry the little sensors are standard products. Interaction of the ball bearing components can accelerate their own failure, harmonics etc, etc ( I am not an engineer).

So the gentleman who wondered why Porsche, why? I second. Along the trail of tears for this engine has there been any attempt to correlate sources of the bearings with failures? From the looks Porsche has been successful running cams right on aluminum where others have failed. Makes one wonder.

[imon_2nd]

Had my new-to-me 2004 S in the shop for IMS, clutch, RMS, etc. Turns out, the engine must have failed while the first owner had it, which was the first 42,000 miles. The second owner had no records from that period when I bought the car Monday with 98K miles. He was not aware that the motor had been replaced in 2006. If the IMS fails in the 2006 motor, the engine has to be split open to replace it. So, I'll live with it.

BTW, the clutch plate was at about 50% wear and the throw-out bearing was shot. Otherwise, everything else about the car checked out fine.